The Poison Apple Needs to Go” By Garett Fisbeck The Poison Apple needs to go! I was reading the most recent New York Times column about the “Poison Apple” which was written by the great columnist Bob Herbert. In his column Herbert points out the racism in the Tea Parties protests and the racism from the Tea Party Patriots. He also speaks out for gay marriage. He is obviously a liberal, although he doesn’t want to hear the word liberal. I don’t either, because to some, liberal means “anti-American.” It is amazing that so many people are so easily misled by labels. While reading about him in his Times article I see that he is pro-social programs like food stamps and unemployment programs as well as health care for people who don’t have insurance. He also wants to raise the minimum wage to $15. That’s enough for me. Lets stop talking about the $7.25 minimum wage as if it was a livable wage. It isn’t! Lets also talk about the fact that he supports gay marriage. I support gay marriage as well. It is the only right thing to do. It would have been a matter of “Do you love this person?” and if you said yes you got married, and then, out of the way. Period. Problem solved. The definition of marriage has become twisted so as to justify anti-gay marriage laws. No, there is nothing wrong with homosexuality, and I am not trying to talk down to you. I would hope that you would be intelligent enough to understand and know that homosexuality has been around since the beginning of time. So it’s nothing new, and so what? And why do the religious right feel that gays and lesbians need to “be fixed?” This is just more proof of how religious nut-jobs and the fundies in the political world are brain-washed and don’t think for themselves. And they are too ignorant to look at the facts that the majority of homosexuals are just like any other human beings and that most of them have children and husbands and wives. I know that a family member of mine is gay and had children. I know, I should say “slept with.” I know people, don’t feel like I feel about this subject, but that’s OK. You’ll forgive me if I sometimes wish you didn’t know, but don’t worry, I will never badmouth you. I just won’t tell you my life’s story. It is embarrassing, but I must get out of this straight mindset of mine for your benefit. It seems that a lot of people still haven’t learned that some people are born that way, and this is the way they were made. To understand this subject we have to go back to a historical time of when women were not treated as human beings, when it was legal for a man to sleep with any woman, for any reason, so as to make babies. If you doubt the truth of this, try to go back to when the first marriage was made in America and you will learn how that law came into being. When it was legal for men to have as many mistresses as they wanted. Many times the wife was not even allowed to know of the affair until after it was discovered that she was pregnant. It wasn’t until after many years, when she found out that she was pregnant and that there were so many people involved that it looked like she could have been wronged. Many times a child born out of wedlock was not a true child and was born out of rape, and that child was considered the property of whoever had the last sexual intercourse with her mother. This was not true of all women, but it was true of many women. This is the way things used to be. It was okay for a woman to have sex, but it wasn’t okay for her to have children. And as we all know, and has been proven over and over again, it was the male-driven culture who forced this on the woman and denied her the right to her own sexual needs and her own right to have children. Well, this has changed. People have been able to evolve and to look at this and realize that some of the practices that once were considered normal are not. People also change their views about something once they see the truth of it. I remember when there was an uproar over people eating tuna out of the can. Well, I remember when people found out that they could eat tuna out of the can, and for some strange reason, they didn’t like it. I had never heard of a tuna fish out of the can, and so that was very strange to me. Well, I have changed my views about that. I don’t mind eating tuna that way, but I don’t love it. I like fresh-frozen tuna. And it tastes so much better. Yes, it’s the same with the way they are treated when they go to the store to buy their own groceries. Some people act like they are being treated as dirt, when in fact they are being treated like they are equals. I am sure that if you live in the South you have heard how people are treated in the store. I say “people” and not “black people.” You wouldn’t want to look for work at the store. I mean, if you were treated in the store like the others, then you might be able to make a living there. Yes, it takes many of us a long time to change the way that we think, and yes, sometimes we slip back into our old ways, but change takes time. It takes energy. It takes money. But it is better to be treated like a human being. You don’t have to be able to buy everything you want at the store, but if you can you’re in luck. I know that I am lucky that I was born in this day and age. And like I have said before, “I am not a liberal, I am not a conservative.” I am an American. I love our country. But there is something wrong in our country. Yes, we still need to work on our country, but we must keep in mind that sometimes we only see the bad in our country. I don’t want to seem to be taking anything away from people who speak out against things that aren’t right in our society, but we do have to remember how lucky we are to live in this great nation. If we don’t we can become like the Greeks, who have fallen so far so that their women are sold like sex slaves. No, I’m not going to give you any names. Yes, I can see it in you, so don’t try to act so innocent. I want to thank Bob Herbert for writing a column that shows how racism still exists in America. I want to thank him for pointing out to the world how foolish and un-American it is to keep “poison apples.” I also want to thank him for pointing out that there is a double standard when it comes to how people are treated when they go to the store and how minorities are treated in America. I feel bad about being so cynical about the good of our country, and I feel bad about not seeing past the racism that exists in this country, but I have seen the racism and I know that we must continue to keep the good that we have in our country. We must keep fighting against the injustice that exists in this country, but we can do that without being blinded by the racism that still exists in the nation. I am sad that this is what our country has become, and I am saddened by what is happening to America. I do not want to give you the idea that I think that we should be more like the Japanese, or the Germans, or the Chinese, but I do think that we need to look at how our people are treated and how they live. And we need to look at how they treat each other. The way things are going in this country it will be a long time before things change for the good. We have a long way to go before we will ever become a great nation. The sad thing is that people don’t even have a plan of what that great nation might be like, and if it does happen it is never going to happen because of this hatred and racism that we live in. So we must all do our best to keep the good in this country, no matter what it may be, because the hate that is trying to destroy us won’t make it easy for us. And if you want to talk about racism, if